


thoughtful

by alohavera (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23180830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/alohavera
Summary: Kageyama cares more than he lets on.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 4
Kudos: 120





	thoughtful

"Fly hiiigh, hiiigh…" Hinata sang to himself softly as he swept the floor of his classroom. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows, illuminating the dust motes left in his wake. The sleeves of his uniform were rolled up to his elbows, a few drops of perspiration on his forehead.

He heard the rattle of the door slide open. He glanced up.

"Kageyama?"

His teammate leaned against the doorframe. "Did you forget we have practice everyday, dumbass?"

Hinata frowned at him. "No, stupid-yama." He gestured at the broom in his hand. "I have classroom clean-up duties today." He resumed sweeping. "Can't leave until I'm done. I already told Coach Ukai."

Hinata could literally feel his teammate frown at him. He suppressed a smile. "Who's helping you?"

"Two others. They went to take out the trash and recycling."

"Well…" Kageyama hovered on the threshold, searching for something to say. "Sweep faster, dumbass."

Hinata opened his mouth to bite out a retort, but Kageyama continued, "I've got something I want to practice with you today. So come down to practice as soon as you can."

Hinata glanced at him. "Okay."

Kageyama continued to hover. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts. It was kind of weird, Hinata thought, seeing him outside of the gym in his athletic wear. "Do you need help with anything?" he muttered.

Hinata blinked at him. "Uh, I don't want to make you late to practice."

The taller boy shrugged. "I can't do much without you there anyway."

"Well okay…" Hinata said slowly. He pointed to a stack of textbooks near the wall. "Could you take those to the storage room please?"

Kageyama nodded, pushed himself off the doorframe, and got to work on moving the heavy books. Hinata continued humming to himself, sweeping as he went along, the sun still shining through the windows, dropping lower and lower in the sky. The shadows grew longer, the sunlight weaker. The light had an orange, rosy tint to it now. Somehow this was nice, Hinata thought. Cleaning the classroom with Kageyama was weirdly calming. They hadn't gotten into a single argument yet, which was surprising.

Kageyama made quick work of the textbooks. "Anything else?" he asked, dusting off his hands.

"No, I just have to clean the blackboard and then I'm done," Hinata said. He would leave the rest of the duties to his two classmates. Thanks to Kageyama, he had done more than his share already.

Kageyama nodded. He moved towards the exit. "See you at practice then."

"Kageyama!" The taller boy froze on his way out. He turned to Hinata, questioning. 

"Thank you for your help. I appreciate it," the redhead said sincerely.

"Don't mention it," Kageyama replied gruffly. "As I said, it's no help to me if you're not at practice anyway."

Hinata smiled at him. "See you in a bit."

Hinata finished sweeping, then wiped down the chalkboard. When the other two on cleaning duty returned, they were surprised by how much Hinata had accomplished and thanked him profusely. "I'll leave you guys to wipe the desks down then," he said, and politely took his leave.

As he walked down the hallway, towards the stairwell, he passed by Kageyama's classroom. '1-3' the sign above the door read. Hinata had the sudden urge to go inside. Even though he knew Kageyama was waiting for him to show up to practice. Hinata tried the door. It was unlocked. He would be quick, Hinata decided.

Hinata had never been inside Kageyama's classroom before. It was sort of an unspoken rule: if you weren't from that class, then you really didn't belong there. Hinata always kept to the threshold of the door, when he called on Kageyama to come to lunch or to spend his break playing volleyball. He never breached that boundary, never took a step inside Kageyama's territory. 

He was alone now, in Kageyama's classroom, and it felt strange. Sort of intimate, though it looked more or less identical to Hinata's own classroom. Hinata gazed at the rows of desks, wondered which one of them belonged to Kageyama. He thought that maybe if he squinted hard enough, he might be able to discern which one belonged to his teammate. Maybe there would be some distinguishing feature, which only he -- Kageyama's teammate -- could identify.

But this theory was quickly extinguished as Hinata's gaze hopped from one desk to another. They were all the same to him, smooth wooden surface, rusty metal frame. Hinata felt a little drop of disappointment in his stomach.

His eyebrows dipped. He thought back to the times he had looked inside this classroom. Where had Kageyama been sitting? By the windows, maybe?

Hinata went to the first desk by the windows. Before he realized what he was doing, he lifted the surface up to reveal the desk's contents. There was a stapled assignment inside, bearing the owner's name at the top. This wasn't Kageyama's desk.

Blushing, Hinata lowered the surface back down. What was he doing? This kind of behavior was weird, not something he wanted to be caught doing. He glanced at the open doorway, out into the hall. There was practically no one left in the school at this time of the day. He went to the second desk by the windows, opened it up. This one wasn't Kageyama's either.

He moved back, checking the third desk, feeling like this was probably a futile task when this one didn't prove to be Kageyama's either. When he opened the lid of the fourth one, he nearly dropped it. There was a notebook inside, bearing Kageyama's name in a messy scrawl.

Hinata swallowed, then lifted the lid of the desk all the way up, so it hung suspended in the air. Then he reached inside and picked up the red notebook. It was thin, with a flimsy plastic cover. Holding it away from himself a little, as if to shield himself from the immorality of what he was doing, Hinata flipped the notebook open.

It took him a little while to decipher what was written inside.  _ (Is this even Japanese? _ Hinata had wondered initially.) But eventually he realized that this was just a regular school notebook. There were assignments inside, math exercises and English words. It wasn't some personal diary holding the secrets to Kageyama's deepest thoughts. Hinata felt a little frown tug at his lips. His feeling of disappointment was undeniable.

He was about to close the notebook and put it back in its rightful place, when his eye alighted on something -- his name.

His heart sped up.

He read on. "Make sure to tell Hinata at practice, don't drop your arms when you receive. Make proper contact with the ball." And under that: "Practice setting up crosses with Hinata today."

The redhead's eyes widened. He flipped back a page. There was a similar laundry list of items, each one starting with ‘Tell Hinata…’ or ‘Practice with Hinata…’ Every other page had these little notes inscribed upon them. A few of them mentioned their other teammates, but the vast majority involved him.

Hinata knew that Kageyama took volleyball seriously. But to concern himself so much with Hinata's own development in the sport was…

His heart was beating even faster now.

Hinata felt warm and somewhat lightheaded. He carefully put the notebook back inside Kageyama's desk, closed the lid, then quickly left the classroom, sliding the door shut behind him. His shoes echoed against the linoleum floor, a steady staccato.

He ran down the stairwell, then up to the club room where he threw on his practice clothes in a hurry. By the time he jogged to the gym, there wasn't much time left for practice. Forty-five minutes at most.

Kageyama noticed his appearance first. "Took you long enough," the setter said, a ball in his hands.

Hinata was breathing a little heavily. He stared at Kageyama, trying to catch his breath. The redhead didn't know what to say. He was at a loss for words, his face pink, bent forward, hands on his knees.

Kageyama creased his brow at Hinata. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." Hinata finally found his voice. "Everything's fine." Behind Kageyama, Coach Ukai waved to Hinata. Hinata waved back.

"There's not much time left," Kageyama said, rolling the ball in his hands idly.

Hinata righted himself. "That's alright, let's make the most of it." He smiled at Kageyama. At his weirdly considerate teammate who cared much more than he let on. "Toss to me."


End file.
